To some, the question may seem premature or even insulting. President Obama’s personal popularity remains high and the most recent RealClearPolitics poll average has him at a more than respectable 47.6 percent approval; while the President’s popularity is drifting lower, congressional Republicans have been losing ground to their Democratic rivals in recent polls, and the Republican primary field remains both uninspiring and polarized. Small government, libertarian and Jeffersonian Paulites, globalist ‘great nation’ conservatives, conservative social activists and Jacksonian hyperpatriots are united only in their antipathy to the Obama administration and it is not yet clear whether a GOP candidate can unify this agitated but inchoate mass of energy into a strong and focused campaign.

Nevertheless it seems increasingly clear that the Obama presidency has lost its way; at home and abroad it flounders from event to event, directionless and passive as one report after another “unexpectedly” shows an economy that refuses to heal. Most recently, the IMF has cut its growth forecast for the United States in 2011 and 2012. With growth predicted at 2.5 percent this year and 2.7 percent next, unemployment is unlikely to fall significantly before Election Day. On the same day, the latest survey of consumer sentiment shows an “unexpectedly sharp” dip in consumer confidence. The economy is not getting well; geopolitically, the US keeps adding new countries to the bomb list, but the President has fallen strangely silent about the five wars he is fighting (Iraq, Afghanistan, tribal Pakistan, Libya and now Yemen).

The problem is only partly that the President’s policies don’t appear to be working. Presidents fail to be re-elected less because their policies aren’t working than because they have lost control of the narrative. FDR failed to end the Depression during two terms in office but kept the country’s confidence through it all. Richard Nixon hadn’t ended the Vietnam War in 1972 and George W. Bush hadn’t triumphed in what we still knew as the Global War on Terror in 2004. In all these cases, however, the presidents convinced voters that they understood the problem, that they were working on it, and that their opponents were clueless throwbacks who would only make things worse.

President Obama still has a shot at convincing voters that the GOP would make things worse, but his administration has not just lost control over the direction of the economy. It has lost control of the discussion about the economy.

Why did the stimulus fail? What did the President learn from this failure and what will the President try next? The White House has been so busy bobbing and weaving it has not communicated a simple, clear story about what went wrong and what happens next.

Nobody at this point really knows what the President stands for – at home or abroad. He is not George W. Bush and he is not Bill Clinton, but who is he and where is he taking us? He seems bogged down in the minutiae of policies – most of which don’t seem to be working very well. He has given his opposition valuable gifts, setting goals for himself which he then fails to meet: that the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent, public demands for Israeli concessions he failed to achieve, the promise that his health care proposals wouldn’t effect anyone who liked their current insurance, and the infamous “days not weeks” prediction about the Libya campaign.

These and similar blunders have two things in common: they are unforced errors, and they undercut the President’s ability to present himself as a visionary leader who both understands where the country is headed and has a plan for meeting the obstacles in our path. He frequently appears surprised by events, and over time confidence in his leadership is leaking away.

God, I hope not. Let me be clear. As I've said all along, we need change.

I hope you don't make the mistake of voting for "anyone but Obama" and expecting them to simply be better. You might end up with someone who is worse, and you'll all be left there in the same situation, with all you can say being "At least they're not Obama"

i.e. Don't vote for some right-wing neocon crazy religious fanatic, just because they're not called Obama.

Don't vote for some right-wing neocon crazy religious fanatic, just because they're not called Obama.

I don't believe any of the current candidates qualify for your description. Though I'm not very familiar with all of them. My vote will be based on the repeal of Obamacare. I don't believe Obama will even pretend to consider trying.

At this point, I'm not aware of any opposition candidate who could do worse.

On the down side, pundits are touting Romney with the early lead, and suggesting the GOP favors the candidate with the early lead. I do not want Romney, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sorry, but anyone who can buy into LDS (more so than other Christian cults IMO) just makes me wonder what else they buy into._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Naturally. I know nothing about him until he entered the race (or there was talk of it). I heard "Governor of Utah" and "Mormon." For me, the latter is not acceptable, unless it is attached to former, reformed, recovering, etc.

And for the record, I couldn't accept a Scientology candidate either. At least not unless they revealed that it is nothing more than a social networking club under the ruse of religion to avoid taxation._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

God, I hope not. Let me be clear. As I've said all along, we need change.

I hope you don't make the mistake of voting for "anyone but Obama" and expecting them to simply be better. You might end up with someone who is worse, and you'll all be left there in the same situation, with all you can say being "At least they're not Obama"

i.e. Don't vote for some right-wing neocon crazy religious fanatic, just because they're not called Obama.

Same here. I couldn't be bothered listening to the ring-wingers piss all over themselves and whine and hissy fit about a dem being in office for another 4 years. Watching grown men act like infants is fucking sad._________________

juniper wrote:

you experience political reality dilation when travelling at american political speeds. it's in einstein's formulas. it's not their fault.

He's going to lose because he's a worthless n00b making one bad decision after another.

That's funny, because you elected a deranged zealot twice in a row, who ran the economy into the ground and started two crus.. err 'ground wars'. And you have the audacity to call Obama a worthless n00b? He might not have managed to unfuck Bush's mess, but then who could have?

God knows he isn't perfect and he has made mistakes, but heckling the opposition because your party lost the election is pretty fucking childish._________________

juniper wrote:

you experience political reality dilation when travelling at american political speeds. it's in einstein's formulas. it's not their fault.

The ass should have been replaced by an infant long ago for the Democrat Party. It is more appropriate in so many ways, not just the whining, but the expectation that someone else take care of them, etc., etc._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

The ass should have been replaced by an infant long ago for the Democrat Party. It is more appropriate in so many ways, not just the whining, but the expectation that someone else take care of them, etc., etc.